Plumber in Holmdel, NJ, Monmouth County

The earliest work on radio astronomy was conducted by Bell Labs engineer Karl Guthe Jansky in 1931 in Holmdel. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson of Bell Labs discovered evidence for cosmic microwave background radiation while performing research with the Holmdel Horn Antenna, earning them the Nobel Prize in Physics.

The is a 10,800-seat outdoor amphitheatre concert venue located in Holmdel. PNC Financial Services agreed to a deal in 1996 under which it would pay $9.2 million for the naming rights, as part an effort by the Parkway Authority to avoid toll increases, a deal that was extended for another five years in 2006. The facility, which originally opened in 1968, was commissioned by the Garden State Parkway Authority and built based on a design by architect Edward Durell Stone at a cost of $6.75 million (equivalent to $56.8 million in 2022). Adjacent to it is the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which opened on May 7, 1995.

In 1977, Bruce Springsteen wrote and recorded many of his songs from his album Darkness on the Edge of Town in an old farmhouse in Holmdel.